Gore, meet Monckton

So Al Gore, who invented the internet, says the earth is warming quickly and we’re on the cusp of passing the point of ecological no return and dying a horrible, hot, death.

Enter stage left: Christopher Monckton, who “…advised Margaret Thatcher, FRS, on scientific scams and scares”, lays out how the U.N. has possibly cooked the books regarding the warming trend so many are alarmed about. Specifically, “…the UN had minimised the sun’s role in changing past and present climate, persisted in proven errors and used unsound data, questionable graphs and meretricious maths to exaggerate future warming threefold.” Wow. Not holding much back, is he? [Note to self: I’ve got to add meretricious maths to the next performance report I write.]

Not content with that, he then lambastes the proposed solution of spending 1% of the world’s GDP in order to “avert disaster”. The likely outcome? “They are also coy about what value our $500 billion a year would buy us. They say that if the world stabilises atmospheric CO2 at about 485 parts per million we’ll have spent 1 per cent of GDP to get – er – a 1.1 per cent fall in consumption.”

Not being an environmental scientist, I can’t really say whether global warming is something to be worried about or not. I’m convinced it’s real, but I’m not convinced it’s as bad as people think. Call me a skeptic, but until the models can predict the temperature 5 and 10 years down the road (hasn’t been done yet), then it’ll be more likely I buy into the global warming panic.

I’m all for environmentally friendly buildings, power, cars, and more. However, I’m for those things because the Mrs. has introduced the concept of ‘frugality’ into my life and I’ve taken a liking to it. If I can save some money by changing the light-bulbs to LEDs and having an energy efficient house, then maybe she’ll reward my efforts by funding one of these. Plus, I’m a big fan if independence. So, being independent of middle-eastern oil is good and being independent of aging U.S. power distribution systems is better. Go green!